Organizations
are releasing mobile apps in quick succession to
leverage the growing appetite of tech-savvy customers. However, not every app
receives user acceptance owing to a range of issues. These include functional
defects, below-par performance, device incompatibility, and poor user
experience. As users become more critical of such issues and are deluged with a
range of alternatives, mobile
application testing has become important. Surprisingly, most
organizations are yet to embrace mobile
test automation even as they slug it out to release newer variants of
apps. So, what challenges do enterprises face when they go about conducting mobile test automation? Let us
describe some of the biggest ones:
Biggest challenges
for testing mobile applications
The list of challenges bedeviling the
mobile test exercise is -
1.
Quick release
schedules: With customers
rooting for mobile apps in greater numbers, enterprises don’t want to be a late
entrant and miss the bus. They go for quick build and release cycles where a
thorough round of testing often becomes a casualty. Also, due to the pressing
schedules, enterprises neither integrate new tests into their test cycles nor have
the time to write test scripts. With DevOps and Agile being the methodologies
to develop glitch-free applications, the need has arisen to develop a test
suite. The suite should be underpinned on continuous innovation to address the
dynamics of a complex mobile environment. However, this makes the test cycle
lengthy with the release of new devices, operating systems and their variants,
features, and functionalities.
2.
Choosing the right
mobile app test automation tool: Every mobile app comes with different test challenges where no two are
similar. Although the market is flush with many automation tools, the challenge
is to find the right one that addresses the specific test requirement. So, to
choose the right mobile application QA
testing tool, enterprises should meet certain standards:
·
Ease of use and
the ability to create a script
·
Ought to run on
native and object web properties for better identification of the components
·
Ability to connect
to the cloud
·
Enable more than
functional testing
3.
Security: Given its growing ramifications on
brand equity and user experience, security testing has become a challenging
exercise. The reason being the umpteen vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit
to steal data or information. When it comes to the cloud, it is better to rely
on a private cloud, for it provides better encryption. Also, preventing data
breach on a public cloud platform should be given serious consideration by
implementing mobile testing.
Further, DevOps should be changed to DevSecOps for better security compliance
and accountability across the organization.
4.
Diversity in
devices: The mobile ecosystem has numerous
mobile devices with different configurations. Such device diversity makes mobile app testing a challenging task,
especially for native, hybrid, and web apps. Moreover, the type of testing
differs as well vis-a-vis compatibility, performance, stress, conformance, and
security. Even though native apps have a limited scope of testing, their hybrid
and web counterparts are needed to be tested for on and off platforms. This can
create knotty back-end issues. Both native and hybrid apps should be tested on
various device platforms to ensure outcomes like quick and seamless download,
performance, platform interaction, and updates.
5.
Diversity in OS
platforms: One of the most
challenging scenarios in mobile test automation
is to account for the fast-changing operating systems and their
variants. With devices operating on different variants of Android, iOS or
Windows operating systems at any point in time, mobile testing can become complicated. These mainly relate to the
compatibility issues when apps are deployed across operating environments.
However, these can be addressed by following solutions -
·
Putting emulators
into use to identify glitches and security issues
·
Testing on a set
of popularly used devices and target users.
·
Using a mix of
both in-house mobile lab and cloud based mobile QA testing
Conclusion
The widespread usage of mobile apps
and their interfaces with myriad thirty party sites have meant vulnerabilities
can creep into the system, anytime and anywhere. Also, since a significant
number of mobile apps carry critical financial and personal information, they
should be guarded against all kinds of cyber threats. A thorough mobile application testing framework
can help identify such glitches and deliver great user experiences.
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